The good news is alive in the world. Do not be afraid. Go back to Galilee. Go back to Galilee where it all started. Go back to Galilee and celebrate like we did at the beginning when we were not afraid, when these words of liberation had not yet drawn the trappings of imperial execution.
Here in this artwork, the crowd is celebrating. Figures are dancing and dancing and dancing. Doves fly among the dancers, breaking borders, Holy Spirit. This throng is in the vacant space of the empty cross. The cross here is mirroring the traditional, four-petaled, stained-glass window design element, which has long represented the cross in European architecture.
The crowd dancing within the cross celebrates the resurrection of Jesus, fearlessly awaiting his arrival in Galilee. The Roman weapon of oppression, the cross, inflicts but a pause in the steadfast and abiding ministry of revolutionary love offered by Jesus in his public ministry. It is fitting then that we should go back to the place it began, when fear was not such a lethal factor. God has overcome death. Hallelujah!
Around the dancing figures in Galilee, patterns of doves disperse outward. The good news, the euaggelion, is alive in the world. Do you remember? The cross is empty, yet full. Overcome. Go and you will find Jesus, free in the world in the faces of strangers and neighbors.
—Hannah Garrity
